


Sick of Waiting

by e_cat



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, I keep writing college AUs for some reason, I'm just making up tags I'll stop now, M/M, Sick Will, mentions of Jason and Leo in the most stereotypical way possible, slight angst in the middle, solangelo anthology, solangelo weekend, this title is really dumb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-02
Updated: 2015-08-02
Packaged: 2018-04-12 11:54:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4478393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/e_cat/pseuds/e_cat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nico is going to Biology lab, and his lab partner, Will Solace, is sick.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sick of Waiting

**Author's Note:**

> I submitted this story to the [Solangelo Anthology](http://solangeloanthology.tumblr.com/post/125622224980/the-solangelo-anthology-is-here-featuring-a), which is really cool, and you guys should check it out. ;)
> 
> Also, these characters belong to Rick Riordan.

Nico took a deep breath and stepped into the classroom. He took another deep breath and walked to his seat right next to Will Solace. He sat down and set his two cups on the table. He resisted the urge to draw in another deep breath that Will would surely notice, and slid one cup across the lab table. “I brought you some tea,” he mumbled, only looking up from the table after he finished speaking.

Will glared at him in what Nico hoped was a teasing way. “You say that like you aren’t the one who got me sick.” His voice was stuffy and rough, and Nico winced internally.

“You say _that_ like you think I should have skipped class,” he replied, trying to seem confident.

Will huffed indignantly. “Well, maybe you should have. It’s very rude to go to class sick. You could spread your germs – you _did_ spread your germs.”

Nico resisted the urge to laugh at his lab partner. “Will,” he said very seriously, “where are we right now?”

There was silence as Will tried to come up with a response to that. Finally, he said, very quietly, “That’s different.”

Nico snorted. “How so?”

“I…” Will shifted in his seat and licked his lips. “Well, you already did it! That’s how! I’m not exposing these people to anything new.”

Nico laughed quietly. “Will, this is biology class. Do you want to explain your argument to our professor and see what she thinks of it?”

Will glanced at the front of the room, where their professor was getting out the materials they would need for today’s lab. “No,” he muttered. He took a sip of the tea, and nearly spat it out on the table. “Ugh! What did you put in this?”

Nico rolled his eyes. “I spit in it to make sure you had my germs,” he said. “Come on, Will. What do you _think_ I put in it? A little bit of honey, some lemon – oh! I forgot!” He pulled the sugar packets out of his pocket, shrugging sheepishly. “I, um, wasn’t sure how much you’d want.”

Eying the mound of sugar packets distastefully, Will said, “Who on earth would use that much sugar? That’s way too much sugar, and – oh my God. That’s how much sugar you put in your coffee, isn’t it? No wonder you always have so much energy!”

Nico laughed at him. “No, you idiot. One sugar. But I have this friend, Leo, who basically drinks about a milliliter of coffee with the rest of the cup filled with sugar. So, really, I have no idea how much sugar you need.”

Will arched his eyebrows, and slid two packets of sugar from the pile. He spoke as he shook the packets and carefully added the sugar to his tea. “Milliliter? Really, Nico? We’re in America.”

“We’re also in Bio,” Nico retorted. “The milliliter is a very scientific unit of measure.”

Will snorted, which didn’t sound too good with his stuffed-up nose. “Since when are you scientific? I thought you were just here to fulfill your core science requirement.”

“Well, we can’t _all_ be Bio majors,” Nico said, bumping Will’s shoulder.

Before Will could respond, the professor called the class to attention. As she began explaining the lab, Will leaned over and whispered, “Bio, pre-med, thank you very much.” Nico’s skin tingled with the proximity of Will’s lips, and he felt his breathing get shallow. He turned to look at Will, who had turned his attention back to the front of the room. Nico, on the other hand, was more than a little lost once he finally regained the ability to pay attention to the professor several minutes later.

The professor dismissed them to the lab assignment moments later. Nico turned to Will with a sheepish grin. “So, um, what are we doing, again?”

Will gave him a look and sighed. “Weren’t you paying attention?”

Nico blushed. “I was… too busy thinking of a response to your Bio, pre-med comment,” he said lamely.

Will arched his eyebrows. “And? Your incredible response would be?”

Nico almost froze – it hadn’t occurred to him that he would actually need to have a response. “Um… Well, just that your major seems to indicate that you have a death wish. So you should really be thanking me for getting you sick.”

Will laughed. “Why? Is this some sort of deadly disease? Should I be concerned?”

Nico shrugged. “Maybe, with your immune system.”

Will smiled and shook his head. “You know, Death Boy, I never would have thought I’d live to see the day that someone flirted by insulting someone else’s immune system.”

“That’s because you have a death wish,” Nico mumbled, fully aware that his battle against blushing was a lost cause. “And I wasn’t flirting.”

Will smirked. “Sure you weren’t.”

“And don’t call me Death Boy,” he added belatedly. Curse Will for getting him used to that stupid nickname. It had started as Black Death Boy, back when the class was doing projects on diseases, and Nico and Will had argued over the right to research the bubonic plague for long enough that the professor had told them to just work on it together. They had slowly warmed up to each other after that, pairing up for every lab, and Black Death Boy had been shortened for “aesthetic purposes,” according to Will.

“I should call _you_ Death Boy,” Nico muttered in annoyance. “ _You’re_ the one with a death wish”

Will just smiled. He had an evil glint in his eyes, and he leaned in and murmured, “I don’t have a _death_ wish; I have a _Death Boy_ wish.” Then he leaned back and said, “And _that,_ Death Boy, is how you flirt.”

Nico felt like his face was on fire. Rather than try to come up with a response, Nico decided to get up and get the lab materials before the professor got suspicious. Hopefully, she just thought that they’d been using this time to plot a strategy. Hopefully, she didn’t know that they used every single lab to flirt like this. Well, it was mostly Will doing the flirting, but Nico liked to think that he played a part.

As Nico returned with the lab materials, he thought about how his friend Jason had said last night that Nico should just ask Will out already. He thought about how he had gotten mad and told Jason that he wished he’d never confided in him. He thought about how Jason had just looked at him with pity and said that he was always available if Nico wanted to talk. He thought about how he wished it could be that simple, but he was pretty sure Will was just teasing. Will had a lot more confidence than Nico, and if he’d wanted to date him, he would have just asked.

“Are you okay?” Will asked when Nico reached their lab table with the supplies. “You look really serious all of a sudden.”

Normally, he would have teased Will about asking if _Nico_ was okay when he was the one who was sick, but this time, Nico just muttered, “Yeah. I’m fine. Let’s just focus on the lab so you can get out of here and take a nap or something.”

Will looked at him with concern, but he didn’t press the issue. Instead, they did the lab without conversation. Will attempted to make jokes a couple of times, but Nico only responded when Will said something about the experiment. He couldn’t let himself get caught up in hoping that Will wanted something more, because he clearly didn’t. If he did, Nico had realized, he would have said so. He _definitely_ would have said so. He was just playing with Nico, and Nico hated himself for how much he liked it – how much he _let_ himself like it.

Well, he was done. He couldn’t let himself be strung along like this. It was pathetic. Probably, his resolve wouldn’t last through to the next time he saw Will, but he was determined to make his point at least this once. And that meant he couldn’t give in.

Actually, this was a good week for that, since Will obviously wasn’t feeling well enough to press it like he normally would. A couple of times before, Nico had tried to force himself to give up, but Will always wore him down. This time, he wasn’t trying so hard, and Nico tried to convince himself that he wasn’t disappointed about that.

They finished the experiment in record time – since they were actually focusing on the assignment rather than each other, they actually weren’t the last ones in the room for once. Nico went to hand in the assignment and return the lab materials and headed back to the table, determined to get his stuff and go without saying anything. Well, okay, he would probably say goodbye. Well… he would probably also say “See you next time.” And Will would probably say something stupid that he would _have_ to respond to. But, beyond that: nothing.

But when he got back to their lab space, Will wasn’t packing up his things. He wasn’t doing much of anything, really – just standing there, leaning against the lab table, one arm out for balance. “Nico?” he said. “The room is spinning.”

Nico stared at him with concern. “And you came to class like that?” he demanded incredulously.

A flash of impatience crossed Will’s face. “It wasn’t this bad when I left my room,” he protested half-heartedly.

Nico rolled his eyes and shoved his books into his backpack. “Do you want me to walk you to health services?”

Will shook his head, which seemed to be a bad idea, because his arm swiped through the air as if searching for something to hold him up. Without thinking, Nico offered up his arm. For a minute, Will just stared at where his hand had landed on Nico’s forearm, as if uncomprehending. Finally, he looked back up at Nico’s face. “What are they going to do?” he said. “Probably just tell me to rest and drink lots of water. Common knowledge.”

“And yet you felt the need to share it with me,” Nico pointed out. He couldn’t tell if Will’s cheeks were red from blushing or fever. He opted for believing the latter. “What do you want me to do? Help you back to your room?”

Will looked at him imploringly. “Please?”

Nico sighed dramatically and slung his bag over his shoulder. “Fine. Come on, Solace.”

Snatching up his own bag, Will held tightly to Nico’s arm and allowed himself to be led out of the room. They were halfway back to the dorms before Will broke the silence that weighed heavily between them, asking, “Are you mad at me?”

Immediately, Nico shook his head. “No,” he said softly, trying not to hate himself for it. “You’re sick; it’s not your fault.”

“No – I,” Will started, coughing as he adjusted his grip on Nico’s arm anxiously. “I meant… for flirting with you. Are you mad at me for flirting with you?”

Nico didn’t answer right away. In fact, they passed an entire building before Nico answered, and, even then, it was only to say, “I thought for sure that you were going to say that it’s my fault that you’re sick again.”

Will let out a forced sort of laugh. “Right,” he mumbled. “Sorry.” He let go of Nico’s arm and straightened. “I can make it back from here.”

Frowning, Nico reached out and caught his hand. “Wait,” he said. “I thought you were dizzy.”

“First of all,” Will said, “it was vertigo, not dizziness. And, second of all –” He paused; he was _definitely_ blushing this time. “I, uh… I was mostly faking it,” he confessed.

Nico gaped at him. “You were what?”

The red on Will’s face grew a shade darker. “I… you weren’t talking to me,” he explained. “I wanted to… I just wanted you to talk to me!”

Nico recovered from his surprise and glared at his “friend.” He crossed his arms and stormed away. “Nico, wait!” Will called, running after him. A moment later, Nico recalled the phrase “ _mostly_ faking it” as Will knocked both of them to the ground.

Groaning, Nico rolled onto his back. “What?” he growled. “You want to lie to me some more?”

Will shook his head frantically. “No. I want to apologize. I… I thought you didn’t mind the flirting. I’m really sorry, okay? I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

Nico’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not mad about you flirting with me,” he said. “I’m mad that you do it just to toy with me.”

“Toy with you?” Will repeated. “Is that what you think? Nico, I –”

But Nico was already shaking his head. “Forget it,” he said, pushing himself to his feet. “Just forget it. It doesn’t even matter. Forget I said anything.”

“Nico!” Will caught his hand before he could walk away. “Listen! I’m not just flirting with you for the fun of it!”

“W-what? Then… why are you?”

Will laughed, shaking his head in disbelief. “Why do you think? I _like_ you, idiot! I thought I was being obvious enough!”

Nico blinked at him. “Y-you do? But… you never said anything…”

Will looked surprised. “Well, no,” he confessed. “I guess not. But… all the flirting… I thought you would just ask me out eventually. If you wanted to, that is.”

There was a beat of silence, and then Nico said, “You’re an idiot, Solace.”

“I know,” Will mumbled wryly.

“Why on earth would I ask you out when you’re flirting with me like it’s a game?” Nico continued irritably. “You treat it like it’s no big deal, and – and – Why would I think you _actually_ like me when you – you – How would I know you don’t just flirt with everyone? You can’t just treat me like… like your pick-up line training center, and then expect _me_ to –”

“Hey, Death Boy,” Will interrupted, sounding faintly amused; Nico glared at him. “Do you want to go out with me?”

Nico tore his fingers through his hair in frustration. “Did you not hear a word I just said?”

Will laughed softly. “I did,” he said, definitely amused. “You said it was unfair of me to expect you to make the first move. So, I’m asking you out: Will you go out with me?”

“Oh,” Nico said, stunned. Then: “Your inflection was wrong the first time.”

“What are you, an English major?” Will complained. “You still haven’t answered my question. Come on, Death Boy; go on a date with me.”

Nico eyed him suspiciously. “What kind of date?”

“I figured we could do a nice night in,” Will said with a shrug. “Watch a movie. Tonight, if you want to. That is, if you aren’t doing anything.”

Nico sighed, and pulled Will to his feet, finally. “Believe it or not,” he said, “I actually have no plans _any_ night, for at least the next week and a half.”

Will grinned widely. “Not anymore,” he declared. “Movie night!” He began tugging Nico towards the dorms.

“Fine,” Nico said, trying not to sound as elated as he felt. He smirked at Will. “But I’m not kissing you until you can breathe through your nose; I don’t want you to suffocate.”

Will glanced at him, letting his eyes drift over Nico’s whole body. It felt strange, being under so much scrutiny, and it somehow left Nico feeling both unnerved and unusually happy. Will’s grin was mischievous and wild. He said, “I think it actually might be worth it.”


End file.
